Tolerance and Allegory missing word

[M. Collette]

My personal opinion is that Derrida is a joy! 

As far as a certain style of reading being tolerable or not, I tend to go
towards Nietzsche's aphorism that states (paraphrasing for lack of the
source handy) that toleration is a virture of the strong individual. To find
something intolerable is to inflict a sense of "terror" as you hold thier
personal meanings unacceptable and would choose to sanction them.
To agree or disagree (and hold your meaning as superior to the other) is
quite natural and imo acceptable (we should keep our ego intact). The good
has a way of emerging with out the terror of the intolerable (especially as
it relates to ideas).
----------
>From: "Terrance F. Flaherty" <Lycidas at worldnet.att.net>
>To: "M. Collette" <maiantwo at northernnet.com>
>Cc: David Morris <fqmorris at hotmail.com>, pmackin at clark.net, pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: Re: Tolerance and Allegory missing word
>Date: Wed, Oct 13, 1999, 8:26 AM
>

> I typed "banal" but s/b Baneful. Yes, what I find
> intolerable, is the strategy of cutting off an author's
> meaning in mid-paragraph. Jacques Derrida does this to
> Plato's Phaedrus at the critical juncture when Plato's
> mythical King Thamus is about to censure Theuth, who turns
> out to function for Derriada as a symbol of deconstructive
> writing. Poor King Thamus must wait thirty odd pages before
> he can finish his judgment.
>
> "M. Collette" wrote:
>>
>> In defining the "post-modern" as it is used in our various contexts, let us
>> remind ourselves that the post-modern precedes the modern (it becomes modern
>> with application and meta acceptance). I recognize that  the root behind the
>> word "modern" is "mode" (a way -singular-of doing something, usually
>> current). The post-modern is away from a (universalist) mode, but toward a
>> multiplicity of modes. It is an acceptance of the variety of meanings that
>> can occur from the writer of the text and the reader of that particular
>> text.
>>
>> I take issue with the assessment of Derrida and deconstruction as
>> "banal"---Derrida is acknowledging the subjectivity of text (and removing
>> the meta quality of it) from both the readers and writers perspective as
>> well the multiplicity of meaning of text. He is removing text from the meta
>> (or "master" as you refer to Lyotard's perspective") to liberate the reader
>> and writer toward alternative meanings.  I think by using the term "banal"
>> you may be demonizing a certain perspective and thus acting contrary to your
>> closing statement. Or am I reading you differently then you are reading
>> yourself?
>>
>> Why should we read anyone as a "traditional American writer"? This is
>> obviously an attempt to objectification (and to move Pynchon toward a meta
>> literature---something that I understand many are reluctant to do). I am not
>> saying that this would not be a worthwhile activity (a reading of any text
>> from a certain perspective will have some value imo), but I am saying that
>> you are expecting something of the group that you have not quite defined. If
>> you want to "us" to do this, possibly you could define what a "traditional
>> American writer" is for you?
>>
>> Another issue I would like to discuss  is the naming of a style of reading a
>> text as "pedestrian". One may be labeling a style of reading with the
>> possible intent of demonizing--- again in oposition to what I read as your
>> intended meaning in your closing. Let us have discourse, but what is
>> meaningful is not necassarily toward the meta (the history of American
>> Literature in this case); meaning is as varied as the readings of a text.
>>
>> I am looking foward to further discouse.
>>
>> ----------
>> >From: "Terrance F. Flaherty" <Lycidas at worldnet.att.net>
>> >To: David Morris <fqmorris at hotmail.com>
>> >Cc: pmackin at clark.net, pynchon-l at waste.org
>> >Subject: Re: Tolerance and Allegory missing word
>> >Date: Wed, Oct 13, 1999, 7:12 AM
>> >
>>
>> > In the archives are 5 posts that define these terms, under
>> > "msat" I think. If we treat each novel as the unique works
>> > that they undoutably are, no "science" of them is possible.
>> > I am attempting not to reduce the art, but to discuss it in
>> > a meaningful way. I think Paul knows what I am talking about
>> > here, if not I assume he will ask. One year ago I joined
>> > this list, one of my first posts, asked that folks define
>> > postmodernism and use it consistently.  When I use the term
>> > postmodern, I often use it as toynbee did in 1875, to
>> > describe an historical cycle, followed by the master
>> > narrative of history (Lyotard) and the inability of such
>> > narratives to think historically (Jameson), and its later
>> > adjustments to the conventions of historical discourse
>> > wherein postmodernism does its slippery thing of
>> > problamatizing the notion of historical knowledge.   I also
>> > use the term as it used in philosophy, dating to Heidegger
>> > and Nietzche and the "death of metaphysics," a philosophical
>> > position that has ancient roots in the Sophists. I also
>> > complain about the tactics, I attribute to Derrida
>> > principally, of deconstructing great texts with the banal
>> > tactic he is now infamous for and refused to respond to, of
>> > cutting off a text--Plato is a good example---destroying its
>> > meaning and in the process, upsetting the ethics of
>> > philosophical hermeneutics. I use the term as it is used in
>> > literary criticism by both McHale and wood. I don't want to
>> > get into putting TRP in a box. I know that using these terms
>> > alienates certain members here, and so I try to avoid them,
>> > I have attempted to argue for one year, that a close read of
>> > TRP's texts as a traditional American writer--note I, as
>> > many do, recognize that postmodern literature in America
>> > needs to be considered in light of American literary history
>> > and its unique developments. I use these two
>> > terms--Menippean Satire and Encyclopedea--with full
>> > knowledge of their limitations, but it is not my intention
>> > to use them to hide behind, to sound smart, to avoid direct
>> > discussion of specific passages or texts, to alienate
>> > anyone, to label, to reduce. I am attempting to have
>> > meaningful discourse, something I sometimes doubt is
>> > possible here, but I nonetheless keep attempting.
>> >
>> > Terrance
>> > David Morris wrote:
>> >>
>> >> >From: "Terrance F. Flaherty"
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> >Failure to recognize that Pynchon's  [NOVELS]  are menippean
>> >> >mostly,
>> >> > > and need to be viewed in light of the ironic treatment of
>> >> > > the  encyclopedia of texts he mingles into his stories with
>> >> > > frightening skill, is akin to failing to understand Eliot's
>> >> > > ironic voices and his foundations in western philosophy.
>> >> >
>> >> >S/B Pynchon's novels are menippean satire, as has been
>> >> >discussed here.
>> >> >
>> >>
>> >> This categorezation is akin to calling Pynchon's novels "Post Modern."  So
>> >> pre-laden.  So indistinct.  Such a downer.
>> >>
>> >> Drop the labels and talk specifics.  OK, the text is all-inclusive.  Does
>> >> that relegate it to the banality of the encyclopedia, however satyric?
>> >> Which of the two do we call predominate?  Satyre?  Then "encyclopedic" is
>> >> only limiting, mundane, pedestrian.  This part is only sport, along with
the
>> >> rest of the sport! This characterization only serves to lower the text to
>> >> the pedestrian, releive it of the numinous.
>> >>
>> >> David Morris
>> >>
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>